Nonviolence in WWII

We’ve looked at nonviolence in a democracy (the civil rights movement), a colony (India), and an authoritarian state (Serbia under Milosevic), but one of the most common arguments against nonviolence is that there are some people who cannot be fought without violence.  Due to Godwin’s Law, this gets translated into something like, “Of course nonviolence works against civilized democracies, but it couldn’t have done anything about Hitler.”  Read the examples of nonviolence during World War II linked on Blackboard, give us a summary of one of the actions and talk about your opinions on this question.

I really enjoyed reading about the nonviolent acts against Hitler because so far in my learning about Hitler and Germany during WWII, I had never heard about such action. Although even the action I would view as successful in each country only affected those in their specific country on a direct level, it seems like the action by the Danes inspired others to act out in spite of the Nazis. Even though the Danes wished to remain neutral and not be involved in WWII, they were pulled in by German occupation and eventual martial law. The Danish army did not take up arms, but maintained peace so that the nonviolent actions like sabotage could be successful. For example, Danes who were put to work manufacturing German weapons and artillery used tactics like the slaves had used against their masters in the 1800's, enacting a type of accomodationist attitude while in actuality trying their best to mess up and slow production. I think that the Danish nonviolent actions could have continued to be successful if the militant underground had not gotten so many people killed, and I think that is the major issue with nonviolence... People en masse don't seem to be ready to enact this style of resistance.